Saturday, June 20, 2009

My Marriage Is Complicated


Dear Agatha,


I read one of your articles; was challenged and decided to open up to you.

I am exactly 34 years old and married. I have been married for two years and we are still expecting the fruit of the womb. My husband and I courted for six years before we got married and he doesn’t live in Nigeria.

At the time of our meeting and during our courtship, not once did he tell me about the existence of a wife or children.

We had already printed our wedding invitation for both the traditional and statutory marriages before he told me on the eve of our traditional wedding about the existence of two children another woman had for him.

According to him, this woman also stays abroad but not with him. He assures that she was only a girlfriend and that, they there was nothing legal between them. Officially, he says they have been separated for three years and that he only talks to her when he wants to speak with the children.

He ended up pleading with me not to leave him on account of what he told me because I mean the world to him. Since I also love him, I accepted his pleas and agreed to go ahead with all the wedding plans.

However, shortly after our wedding, he informed me that the same woman out of mistake gave him another baby. He again apologised but I lost every trust in him.

I actually suspect him of having numerous girlfriends he is keeping away from me.

When members of my family got to know the details of his life, they were very angry with me for going ahead with the wedding plans without considering the implications of what he told me.

Now they are pressurising me to divorce him on account of his duplicity and unfaithfulness to me. What do I do?

Anonymous.


Dear Anonymous,

This is indeed a very complex situation as you are already in the marriage. I can’t tell you to leave because that will be coming between two adults and the choice they made to spend the rest of their lives together. Just like you decided to marry him without pressures from anybody, so also should you make the choice to do what pleases you at the end of the day.

But in making that choice, consider these points to help protect you against similar mistakes.

Why did you marry this man? Was it love or were you influenced by the simple fact that he leaves abroad? Ordinarily, at the point he told you about the existence of these children, you should have probed more into his life and activities before marrying him. In the first instance would you have been easily persuaded to go ahead with the wedding arrangements if he were based in Nigeria and not abroad?

Under normal circumstances, would you have considered marrying a man who didn’t deem it fit to tell you from the very beginning of the relationship all about his children and the woman, who had them for him? Would you have kept the information from your family members?

Chances are you did because you saw him as a passport outside your immediate environment, a situation he knew too well hence manipulated to suit his purpose.

In the six months you dated, what can you say about him? If called upon by the law or anybody to defend his character can you? Apparently, a lot of things were wrong from the first moment you met to the point you got married. You in particular failed to develop the relationship beyond the euphoria of getting married to a man, who stays abroad hence neglected to look at vital signs of defect in his character.

Were you more observant of the essentials, you would have noticed his womanising inclination from the very first moments you met. Such habits are not something that a man develops suddenly. This type of man would never bother to hide it but you made the choice to ignore this for reasons best known to you.

When he told you about the other woman, did you bother to probe deeply? There is a huge difference between being in love and having a motive for staying on. Yes, most times love does make people act out of character but not to the point of accepting a situation you willingly walked into.

At the point he told you, you should have insisted on talking to the children given the fact they were to become your stepchildren. What sort of relationships were you planning on having with these children, who till that moment were none existent? Common sense ought to have alerted you that a man capable of hoarding information about his children from you is capable of doing anything or springing more surprises on you.

If for nothing else you should have confided in someone close to you to help give you a more objective perception into the whole matter. This is because children aren’t ornaments to be sold off when they lose relevance. Children in any relationship are permanent and deserve acute consideration from anybody coming into to their lives.
Sincerely, six months is too short a time to have trusted someone you don’t know with your life, a man who waited till the very last minute to reveal what he should have told you long since, before you walked down the aisle with him. Your inner alarm as a woman should have made you pause all the arrangements at least until the issue of his matrimonial status as well as proper definition of your relationship with his past is spelt out.

Didn’t it cross your mind that he could be lying about his actual relationship with the other woman? That for him to have kept the knowledge of this woman and her children away from you until very late shows he didn’t want to give you any chance to change your mind?

Whatever his faults may be, you also aided him to have treated you with such callousness.

In your two years of being with him what has changed for you and for him? What is the true status of that woman in his life? Have you been able to meet with the children or spoken with their mother? What efforts is he making to take you to live with him at his base? What is his attitude to you and the issue of lack of child between you two yet? For that matter, what deep and lasting lessons have you learnt from all this? Given the chance to change certain things about this marriage what would you do differently?

Furthermore, have you also quizzed him on why he lied to you about the other woman, why he didn’t tell you about her and the children from the beginning? What do you think were his reasons? Had he told you before then, would you have gone as far as you went with him?

Only a deep and sincere X-ray of all the issues agitating your mind would give light to your challenge as well as tell you where to take your marriage to from where it currently is. Again, when did the baby come, after or before he told you about the first two? Or was it that she was pregnant all the time he was courting and planning a wedding with you?

And what would you miss the most if you decide to leave this man, things you know will be difficult to replace in another relationship?

When it comes to marriage and separation, the choices are never straightforward because a lot of things and emotions are involved in the final decisions. The same complex reasons that made you marry him are also the same reasons nobody can make the decision for you except you make up your mind yourself. This way, you have nobody to blame afterwards but yourself.

Because we are not all perfect, don’t look for perfection where none exists rather, look at manageable alternatives, compromises you can endure and what you cannot put up with at all. If the good outweighs the bad at the end of the day, you may consider staying on but if it’s a matter of total collapse of trust and numerous points of disagreements, be bold enough to make the choice now so that you can be happy at the end of the day.

Whatever you decide on, first seek the face and permission of God for the sake of your posterity.

Good luck.